WHAT THEY MAY THINK AT HOME

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1242, 28 February 1878, Page 3

WHAT THEY MAY THINK AT HOME

Is it possible, asks the “Argus,” that the following opinions placed by “Punch” in the mouths of Mr Herbert and Lord Carnarvon represent the real sentiments of the personages in question P “ Her.—But in a despatch marked 'private and confidential’ he (the Governor) describes the character and antecedents of his responsible advisers, ex plains tneir revolutionary aims, and points out with what busy malignity they are fermenting a war of classes, with a view to get the control of a revenue of five millions sterling into their own hands, and that there i? the greatest danger of a state of things being brought about in Victoria compared with which the spoliation by the Tammany Ring in New York would bo honest and reputable. Car.—l cannot help that. As the people of Victoria have made their bed so they must lie in it. And, between ourselves, Herbert, the Cabinet agree with mo that it would not he a bad tiling for England to bo afforded an opportunity of seeing how completely a country, overflowing with all the elements of prosperity, may b - ruined and disgraced by entrusting the conduct of its political affairs to unscrupulous demagogues, lifted into office by unlimited suffrage. Gladstone, you know, is going in for a general levelling downwards, so as to throw the balance of power in this country into the hands of the ignorant and the unthinking, just as has been done in Victoria; and it will be well for us to have a shocking example, such as the state of that colony will afford, to point to as a warning of the calamitous consequences of entrusting ‘ the residuum 1 with the franchise. Her. —But, in the meantime it will be rather hard upon the educated and propertied classes in Victoria to be sacrificed for our instruction. Car.—There are the neighbouring colonies, you know, which will eagerly welcome any accession of enterprise, intelligence, and capital from Victoria, and which will speedily rise in wealth and numbers, in her political, social, and industrial ruin. But it is time I went to the Council. Get the despatch ready for the outgoing mail, and we will run it over together and forward it without delay.— (Exit.)”